Romans line the streets as American armor rolls by the Coliseum
(National Archives)

Introduction

World War II was the largest and most violent armed conflict in the history
of mankind. However, the half century that now separates us from that conflict
has exacted its toll on our collective knowledge. While World War II continues
to absorb the interest of military scholars and historians, as well as
its veterans, a generation of Americans has grown to maturity largely unaware
of the political, social, and military implications of a war that, more
than any other, united us as a people with a common purpose.

Highly relevant today, World War II has much to teach us, not only about
the profession of arms, but also about military preparedness, global strategy,
and combined operations in the coalition war against fascism. During the
next several years, the U.S. Army will participate in the nation's 50th
anniversary commemoration of World War II. The commemoration will include
the publication of various materials to help educate Americans about that
war. The works produced will provide great opportunities to learn about
and renew pride in an Army that fought so magnificently in what has been
called "the mighty endeavor."

World War II was waged on land, on sea, and in the air over several
diverse theaters of operation for approximately six years. The following
essay is one of a series of campaign studies highlighting those struggles
that, with their accompanying suggestions for further reading, are designed
to introduce you to one of the Army's significant military feats from that
war.

This brochure was prepared in the U.S. Army Center of Military History
by Clayton D. Laurie. I hope this absorbing account of that period will
enhance your appreciation of American achievements during World War II.

GORDON R. SULLIVAN
General, United States Army
Chief of Staff

Rome-Arno22 January-9 September 1944

Rome was quiet on the morning of 4 June 1944. Propaganda leaflets dropped
during the early morning hours by order of the commander of the Allied
15th Army Group, General Sir Harold R. L. G. Alexander, urged Romans "to
stand shoulder-to-shoulder to protect the city from destruction and to
defeat our common enemies." Even though the retreating Germans had declared
Rome an open city, citizens were urged to do everything possible to protect
public services, transportation facilities, and communications. "Citizens
of Rome," the leaflets declared, "this is not the time for demonstrations.
Obey these directions and go on with your regular work. Rome is yours!
Your job is to save the city, ours is to destroy the enemy."

Hours later the first Fifth Army units, elements of the U.S. 3d, 85th,
and 88th Infantry Divisions and the 1st Special Service Force, reached
the outskirts of the city, encountering only scattered German resistance.
The citizens of Rome remained indoors as instructed, but on the following
day, 5 June, throngs of ecstatic Italians spilled into the streets to welcome
the Americans as the main elements of the Fifth Army moved north through
the city in pursuit of the Tenth and Fourteenth Armies. The stay of Fifth
Army combat units in the city was brief, however, and within days the battle
for Italy resumed to the north.

The liberation of Rome was the culmination of an offensive launched
in late January 1944 that Allied leaders had hoped would both result in
the capture of the Axis capital by 1 February and complete the destruction
of the German forces in Italy. Instead, the Allies failed to break through
the formidable enemy defenses until late May 1944. Even with Rome in Allied
hands, the Italian campaign would last another eleven months until final
victory.

Strategic Setting

The Allied landings in Italy in September 1943, followed quickly by
the liberation of Naples and the crossing of the Volturno River in October,
had tied down German forces in southern Italy.

By year's end a reinforced German army of 23 divisions, consisting of
215,000 troops engaged in the south and 265,000 in reserve in the north,
was conducting a slow withdrawal under pressure from the U.S. Fifth Army
under Lt. Gen. Mark Clark and the Commonwealth and Allied forces of the
British Eighth Army under General Sir Bernard L. Montgomery. South of Rome
the Germans constructed three major defensive lines: the Barbara Line,
ill defined and improvised, stretching from Monte Massico to the village
of Teano, to Presenzano, and to the Matese Mountains; the Bernhard, or
Reinhard, Line, a wider belt of stronger fortifications forty miles north
of Naples between Gaeta and Ortona, extending from the mouth of the Garigliano
River near Mignano to Monte Camino, Monte la Difensa, Monte Maggiore, and
Monte Sammucro; and the most formidable of the three belts, the Gustav
Line, a system of sophisticated interlocking defenses, anchored on Monte
Cassino, that stretched across the rugged, narrowest point of the peninsula
along the Garigliano and Rapido Rivers.

In mid-January 1944 the Allied armies were through the first two belts
and were facing the Gustav Line. Yet the Allied forces were exhausted from
months of heavy fighting in bitter weather. The terrain also favored the
defenders, who used the Apennine Mountains, with their deep valleys, foggy
hollows, and rain-swollen streams and rivers, to slow the Allied advance
to a crawl. Allied soldiers endured icy winds and torrential rains, lived
in improvised shelters, ate cold rations, suffered from exposure and trench
foot, and hauled their own munitions and supplies up and down steep mountainsides
where vehicles and even mule trains were often unable to negotiate the
few crude tracks or rocky crags.

The Fifth Army drive along the western half of the peninsula halted
at the Garigliano and Rapido Rivers several miles from the base of Monte
Cassino, a massif which blocked the entrance to the Liri valley, the most
expeditious route to Rome. The Eighth Army drive along the eastern portion
of the peninsula was also stalled well short of Pescara on the Adriatic
coast. In describing the difficulties of the campaign, and the elusiveness
of its goal, the Fifth Army's VI Corps commander, Maj. Gen. John P. Lucas,
wrote that Rome seemed a long way off and that brilliant maneuvers were
impossible in the mountainous terrain. The prospect of renewed frontal
assaults over difficult ground, in poor weather, against a well-entrenched
and determined enemy adversely affected the morale of all ranks.

Maj. Gen. Frederick L. Walker, commanding the U.S. 36th Infantry Division
of Fifth Army's II Corps, wrote in late December that there was little
hope that the Italian campaign would end anytime soon. Taking one mountain
mass after another gained no tactical advantage as there was always another
mountain mass beyond with Germans on it.

The composition and capabilities of the Allied armies in Italy, and
the nature of their operations, reflected the disagreement between the
American and British high commands about the overall Allied strategy in
the Mediterranean. The British had long favored a peripheral, or indirect,
approach to defeating Germany. They sought to engage the Axis in the Balkans
and Mediterranean, drawing enemy forces from other fronts and whittling
away their strength. Only after the Allies had amassed an overwhelming
superiority in men and materiel were they willing to think favorably of
a knockout blow across the English Channel. The Americans favored an immediate
cross-Channel assault, but they saw their 1942 and 1943 invasion plans
delayed by materiel and manpower shortages as well as by the reluctance
of their allies to undertake the climactic blow. To the Americans, each
diversion of men and equipment to the Mediterranean theater, especially
amphibious shipping, which was in short supply throughout the world, only
delayed the main event. When the Allies decided to schedule the invasions
of Normandy (OVERLORD) and southern France (ANVIL) for the summer of 1944,
Italy was destined to become a holding action of secondary importance.

General Dwight D. Eisenhower relinquished command of the Mediterranean
theater early in January 1944 to assume command of the OVERLORD invasion
forces. His successor, General Sir Henry Maitland Wilson, turned over the
main responsibility for directing Mediterranean operations from the American
Joint Chiefs of Staff (JCS) to the British Chief of Staff, General Sir
Alan Brooke, and to Prime Minister Winston S. Churchill, who immediately
attempted to revitalize the Italian campaign. Churchill wanted the theater
to receive increased support, commenting in mid-December that the stagnation
of the whole Italian front was becoming scandalous. He added that the capture
of Rome was essential since the success or ruin of the Italian campaign
depended on it.

To restore maneuver to the battlefield, Allied leaders in November had
discussed an amphibious landing behind enemy lines at Anzio, thirty-five
miles southwest of Rome. The lack of troops and landing craft, however,
caused the cancellation of the plan in December. With the change in theater
leadership and the concomitant British insistence on an increased effort
in Italy, the Anzio idea was revived. The new plan called for the Fifth
Army to land two divisions at Anzio and rapidly drive inland toward Rome
to cut enemy supply and communication lines. To facilitate the invasion,
the main body of the combined Fifth Army, consisting of the British 10
Corps, the French Expeditionary Corps (FEC), and the U.S. II Corps, would
draw German forces away from Anzio by attacking toward the Rapido and Garigliano
Rivers. Clark's forces would then cross the rivers, take the high ground
on both sides of the Liri valley, and advance north to link up with the
Anzio beachhead. Eighth Army, under Lt. Gen. Sir Oliver Leese, would support
these operations by crossing the Sangro River and capturing Pescara, further
tying down the enemy. The offensive in the Fifth Army area would start
on 17 January, and 40,000 Allied troops would land at Anzio five days later.

Operations

The British 10 Corps attacked with two divisions across the Garigliano
River near Minturno on 17 January. The 5th and 56th Divisions ferried ten
battalions to the far bank and established a bridgehead. This posed a serious
threat to the Gustav Line and stunned the XIV Panzer Corps commander, Maj.
Gen. Fridolin von Senger und Etterlin, whose forces opposed Fifth Army.
Senger knew that the hard-pressed 94th Grenadier Division could not stop
the British without help. On 18 January he appealed to Field Marshal Albert
Kesselring, the commander of German forces in Italy, to send immediate
reinforcements to the Garigliano front. Having been informed by military
intelligence that no Allied landings were expected in Italy, Kesselring
sent the 9th and 29th Panzer Grenadier Divisions, units he had held in
reserve to counter a possible amphibious operation, south from Rome. These
German units halted the British drive far short of the heights the Americans
considered vital for their Rapido assault, and attempts by the British
46th Division to cross on 19 January failed against heavy resistance, leaving
the U.S. II Corps flank unprotected as the Americans prepared to storm
the Rapido the next day. The British did draw enemy reserves away from
the Anzio area, thus obtaining one vital Allied goal, but at a cost of
more than four thousand casualties.

The 36th Infantry Division of the II Corps had been ordered to cross
the Rapido River in the vicinity of Sant'Angelo, a village atop a forty-foot
bluff. The 15th Panzer Grenadier Division, considered one of the best enemy
units in Italy, opposed the Americans. The Rapido was a small but swift-flowing
river, 25 to 50 feet wide and 10 to 15 feet deep, with banks varying in
height from 3 to 6 feet. There were few covered approaches to the river.
Because the British 10 Corps and the French Expeditionary Corps had failed
to expel the Germans from the heights on both sides of the Liri valley
between 12-20 January, the entire area was under enemy observation.

The Rapido River viewed from Monte Trocchio
(National Archives)

The 141st and 143d Infantry regiments of the 36th Division were
to cross the river on the night of 20 January and envelop Sant'Angelo from
the north and south. Both the division commander, General Walker, and the
II Corps commander, Maj. Gen. Geoffrey T. Keyes, feared heavy losses. The
assaulting units were below strength and contained many unassimilated recruits
and inexperienced small unit leaders who had only recently arrived to fill
the gaps left by the heavy losses suffered in earlier battles. Additionally,
the troops lacked sufficient boats, bridging equipment, and training in
river crossings. The engineers assigned to assist the crossings had obtained
over a hundred rubber and wooden assault boats, but were unable to move
them to the river bank because of withering enemy fire, poor roads, land
mines, and spongy ground. They left the craft several miles to the rear
near Monte Trocchio for the already heavily laden infantrymen to carry
to the river on the night of the attack.

Despite alternative suggestions from his subordinates, General Clark
insisted on crossing the Rapido at the planned point and time to keep pressure
on the Germans during the Anzio landing and to gain a bridgehead so that
armored units of Combat Command B (CCB),1st Armored Division, could dash
north up the Liri valley toward Anzio. Like Walker and Keyes, Clark expected
heavy losses, but he considered the Rapido attack vital to draw enemy forces
away from the Anzio area. In the days before the attack, Walker expressed
his pessimism in his diary, confiding that the attack might succeed, but
that he did not see how it could. Walker believed the mission was poorly
timed and that a frontal attack across the Rapido would end in disaster.
He wrote that he was prepared for defeat.

At 1905 on 20 January, after an artillery barrage of 31,000 shells,
the 1st Battalion, 141st Infantry, began its assault. As expected, the
unit immediately came under heavy enemy mortar, artillery, and small arms
fire. The unit suffered severe casualties, especially from artillery and
land mines—one company lost thirty men to a single shell—and quickly became
disorganized. Rumors ran rampant, markers indicating cleared paths through
minefields were destroyed or lost, guides became disoriented in the fog
and darkness, infantrymen refused to cooperate with the engineers, and
men wandered away from their units. Enemy fire damaged or destroyed most
of the assault boats on the river bank, and the remainder were hit soon
after they entered the water. Much of the bridging equipment was destroyed
before it reached the river, and efforts by the engineers to construct
bridges failed amid a rain of enemy shells. By 0400 about a hundred men
of the 1st Battalion had crossed the river, but the only remaining footbridge
was soon destroyed, isolating them on the far bank. German artillery knocked
out telephone wires, field radios were lost or malfunctioned, and engineer
and infantry units were quickly pinned down on both sides of the river.
At dawn on 21 January the regimental commander suspended the attack, ordered
the troops on the near bank to fall back, and directed those on the other
side to dig in until help arrived.

The 143d Infantry fared little better. It began its attack at 2000 on
20 January using two crossing points a mile to the south of the 141st.
Two companies of the 1st Battalion crossed the rain-swollen river at the
northerly site by 0500, 21 January. Enemy artillery fire destroyed most
of their boats, and with casualties on the far bank increasing, the regimental
commander ordered his soldiers to withdraw across the river, a movement
completed by 1000. At the other site accurate enemy artillery fire and
land mines inflicted such a toll in men and boats and caused such confusion
that an assault was not even attempted. The units withdrew to their preattack
positions at daybreak.

On orders from Clark and Keyes, Walker prepared a renewed assault by
both regiments for the night of 21 January. Confusion, shaken morale, destruction
of equipment, and the dispersal of forces, however, delayed the assaults.
The 143d Infantry attempted a crossing between 1600-1830 on 21 January
under heavy artificial smoke. Although three battalions succeeded in reaching
the far bank by 0200 on 22 January, enemy artillery stymied efforts to
place bridges across the river to allow reinforcement by armor and infantry
units. Heavy fog caused by the weather and artificial smoke pots prevented
counterbattery fire, mines accounted for still more casualties, and demoralization
and disorganization gripped most units.

Amid the confusion and heavy enemy fire, many soldiers behaved bravely.
S. Sgt. Thomas E. McCall, Company F, 143d Infantry, commanded a machine
gun section providing fire support for riflemen crossing the river. Under
cover of darkness, Company F advanced to the crossing site and despite
intense enemy mortar, artillery, and machine gun fire traversed an ice-covered
footbridge. Exposing himself to the deadly enemy fire that swept over the
flat terrain, McCall, with unusual calmness, welded his men into an effective
fighting unit. He led them forward across barbed-wire entanglements and
personally placed the weapons of his two squads in positions covering his
battalion's front. A shell landed near one of the positions, wounding the
gunner and killing the assistant gunner. Amid the artillery barrage, McCall
crawled forward and carried the wounded man to safety. After the crew of
the second machine gun was wounded, Sergeant McCall was the only effective
member of his section. He picked up a machine gun and ran forward firing
the weapon from his hip, successfully assaulting a series of enemy positions
single-handed. Severely wounded in his final attack, McCall was captured
and spent the duration as a prisoner of war in Germany. His actions helped
stabilize the battalion's position, and he was later awarded the Medal
of Honor. Despite such individual acts of courage, by the early afternoon
of 22 January the second crossing attempt had failed, and the badly mauled
and disorganized battalions on the far bank were ordered to withdraw.

The efforts of the already battered 141st Infantry were even less successful.
The 2d and 3d Battalions crossed the river beginning at 2100 on 21 January,
but they found no survivors from among the hundred men stranded on the
far bank the night before. Army engineers began constructing a heavy vehicle
bridge almost immediately after the crossing began, but enemy artillery
halted work at 0945 the next day, and construction never resumed. The remaining
footbridges either were washed away or were destroyed by enemy artillery.
The troops in the bridgehead, unable to move forward farther than 600 yards,
endured a merciless pounding by enemy mortars and artillery. By 1800,22
January, all officers except one were casualties. All boats and bridges
were destroyed, communications were out, and the units were cut off. As
other units farther downstream completed their withdrawals, the Germans
attacked the stranded men of the 141st. Forty men managed to swim back
across the river; the remainder were either killed, wounded, or captured.
All sounds of firing from the far bank ceased at 2140.

In forty-eight hours the 141st and 143d Infantry regiments had suffered
2,128 casualties: 155 killed, 1,052 wounded, and 921 missing or captured.
Enemy losses were negligible, and their scarce reserves were never committed.
General Walker later wrote in his diary that the 36th Division had been
sacrificed for no justifiable end and that he fully expected General Clark
to fire him to cover Clark's own error in judgment. Clark, Walker wrote,
admitted that the failure to cross the Rapido was as much his fault as
anyone's. But the Fifth Army commander's admission of failure was not an
admission of error. The attack was part of Alexander's overall offensive
plan and not the result of Clark's own initiative, and it did succeed in
tying down enemy forces during the Anzio landings as intended. Clark held
that some blood had to be spilled on either the land or SHINGLE (Anzio)
front, and that he preferred it be on the Rapido, where Allied forces were
secure, rather than at Anzio where the Allies had the sea at their back.
He maintained that the attack was necessary within the context of the overall
offensive— a position supported by a postwar congressional inquiry and
then Secretary of War Robert P. Patterson.

As the Rapido crossing attempts ended on 22 January, preventing the
planned Fifth Army drive up the Liri valley, the VI Corps successfully
implemented Operation SHINGLE and landed unopposed at Anzio.

Cassino: the monastery, the castle, and the town
(National Archives)

During the following weeks the combined Anglo-American corps established
a 15-by-22-mile beachhead, forcing the Germans to divert the Fourteenth
Army under General Eberhard von Mackensen from northern Italy to the south.
Other German units had to be dispatched to Italy, weakening enemy forces
in Germany, France, and the Balkans. Yet the VI Corps commander, Maj. Gen.
John P. Lucas, in a controversial interpretation of Alexander's and Clark's
orders, directed the invasion forces to dig in before launching an offensive.
His intention was to ensure the survival of the beachhead against a probable
enemy counterattack, but the effect was to delay a breakout effort until
30 January. By that date the Germans had massed 70,000 troops around Anzio,
and they effectively halted the Allied offensive with heavy losses on both
sides. While subsequent enemy counterattacks failed to destroy the beachhead,
which eventually contained 110,000 soldiers, the planned rapid advance
on Rome had been stalled.

Faced with the necessity of breaking through to the beleaguered Anzio
beachhead, General Clark launched attacks over the high ground northeast
of Cassino. The British 10 Corps resumed its attack from the Garigliano
bridgehead. The U.S. 34th Infantry Division, commanded by Maj. Gen. Charles
W. Ryder, with the aid of the FEC and one regiment of the 36th Division,
attempted to outflank Cassino and to storm the Benedictine monastery on
Monte Cassino above the town, Highway 6, and the Liri valley. In a series
of costly engagements the II Corps and the FEC bent, but failed to break,
the Gustav Line in an area held by six enemy divisions under the overall
control of Tenth Army commander Lt. Gen. Heinrich van Vietinghoff. American
and French units gained a slight foothold on the northeastern slopes of
Monte Cassino itself, while units of the 34th Division crossed the Rapido
by 26 January.

The 34th Division renewed attacks on Cassino in early February to pave
the way for yet another attempt at the Liri valley by the recently created
New Zealand Corps under Lt. Gen. Sir Bernard Freyberg. This corps consisted
of the 2d New Zealand and 4th Indian Divisions and the CCB of the U.S.
1st Armored Division. The 34th Division drive encountered stiff resistance
all the way to Cassino, with advances characterized by small unit attacks
on successive German defensive positions. Second Lt. Paul F. Riordan led
his platoon into the town after personally destroying a pillbox that had
pinned his unit down. Attacking the jail, a major strongpoint, Riordan
again took the lead, managing to penetrate a ring of enemy fire covering
the approaches to the building. Finding himself cut off and aware that
his men were unable to assist him, the young officer continued the attack
alone. He was finally killed by small arms fire after a bitter fight with
the defenders. Lieutenant Riordan's bravery was an inspiration to his men,
and he was posthumously awarded the Medal of Honor. But despite such heroic
efforts by soldiers in the 133d, 135th, and 168th Infantry regiments, the
Germans still held the town after six days of fighting.

One last American attempt to take Cassino was launched on 10 February
with heavy artillery support, but the troops of the II Corps and FEC were
nearing exhaustion, and the drive failed. The newly formed New Zealand
Corps took over the sector from the Americans, who, according to Alexander's
American deputy chief of staff, Brig. Gen. Lyman L. Lemnitzer, were so
disheartened as to be almost mutinous. With the withdrawal of the British
56th Division from the Garigliano front to reinforce the hard-pressed force
at Anzio, the drive toward Cassino stopped.

The Allies had realized early in their campaign against the Gustav Line
that the historic monastery dominating the summit of Monte Cassino (1,703
feet above sea level) was a crucial strategic point. Nevertheless, they
exempted the monastery, founded in 524 A.D. by St. Benedict, from air,
artillery, and ground attacks during the American assaults on Cassino.
Even though the Allies later learned that the monastery itself was never
permanently occupied by the Germans, frequent sightings of enemy personnel
within its walls raised suspicions. In addition, the enemy built heavily
fortified emplacements and observation posts within feet of the monastery
to take full advantage of the terrain and Allied firing prohibitions. But
there was no consensus that the Allied exemption regarding Monte Cassino
was wise. General Alexander and his superiors had long maintained that
the safety of such areas would not be allowed to interfere with military
necessity. When General Freyberg began to plan his assault, he concluded
that the monastery would have to be reduced and requested air attacks.

General Clark, Freyberg's immediate superior, disagreed with this assessment,
and he was supported in his view by French General Alphonse Juin and Generals
Keyes, Walker, and Ryder. Clark hoped to avoid destroying a historic religious
site, and in the process providing the enemy with valuable propaganda.
Nonetheless, Clark also wanted to give the New Zealand Corps every possible
advantage in jump-starting the Allied drive. In addition, sensitive to
the combined Allied command structure in the Mediterranean, he was hesitant
to deny Freyberg's request because of the serious political repercussions
that would result if Commonwealth forces later sustained substantial losses.
Clark therefore passed on Freyberg's request to attack the monastery to
Alexander and his chief of staff, Lt. Gen. Sir John Harding. Both British
officers decided that if Freyberg thought the monastery's destruction was
a military necessity, the attack should proceed, with Alexander concluding
that he had faith in General Freyberg's judgment. Their opinion was confirmed
by General Sir Henry Maitland Wilson, the Supreme Allied Commander of the
Mediterranean theater. After making his own position clear, Clark complied
with the wishes of his superiors and granted his subordinate's request.
General Freyberg's decision, widely condemned at that time and since, is
still mired in controversy.

Freyberg's plan called for an air attack on the monastery followed by
a ground attack by the 4th Indian Division. This infantry assault would
clear Monte Cassino while the 2d New Zealand Division forced the Rapido
to the south. Teamed with armored detachments, the two divisions would
then converge for the drive up the Liri valley. Freyberg's request for
an air attack, however, was greatly expanded by air force planners, and
probably supported by Lt. Gen. Ira C. Eaker, the American commander in
chief of the Mediterranean Allied Air Forces, and Lt. Gen. Jacob L. Devers,
Wilson's American deputy theater commander. The Americans sought to use
the opportunity to showcase the abilities of the U.S. Army air power to
support ground operations. Following the dropping of leaflets warning civilians
in the monastery to evacuate, the Tactical and Strategic Army Air Forces,
consisting of the 319th, 340th, 321st, 2d, 97th, 99th, and 301st Bomber
Groups, began their bomb runs at 0945, 15 February 1944. A total of 142
B-17s, 47 B-25s, and 40 B-26s dropped 1,150 tons of high explosives and
incendiary bombs on the abbey, reducing the entire top of Monte Cassino
to a smoking mass of rubble. Between bomb runs the II Corps artillery pounded
the mountain.

The controversial bombing destroyed much of the monastery and its outer
walls but did not penetrate the subterranean chambers the Allies thought
the Germans were using as bomb shelters. When the 4th Indian Division launched
its attack on the night of 15 February, it was repulsed with heavy casualties.
Over the next three days fighter-bombers provided close support of further
Indian assaults, all of which failed with tremendous losses. Even though
the 2d New Zealand Division, aided by 34th Division and 36th Division artillery,
crossed the Rapido and made significant headway into Cassino, the heavy
losses sustained by Allied units, especially the Indians, forced a halt
in operations and a withdrawal from the slopes.

In mid-March the Allies attacked Monte Cassino again. The new assault
was to coincide with an attack on the town of Cassino by the 2d New Zealand
Division and CCB, 1st Armored Division. The latter units hoped to force
a further crossing of the Rapido, capture Sant'Angelo, cut Highway 6, and
assist the British 78th Infantry Division to penetrate the Liri valley.
Although most commanders now doubted whether air assaults could reduce
the Cassino defenses to the point where the infantry could succeed, a large
air attack was nonetheless planned. Successive waves of bombers were to
pulverize Cassino between 0830 and noon, delivering 750 tons of 1,000-pound
bombs with delayed-action fuses. During the afternoon, every artillery
piece on the Cassino front would target the town and provide a creeping
barrage for the attacking Indian infantry.

On 15 March 1944, Generals Clark, Alexander, Eaker, Freyberg, and Devers
watched the air attack on Cassino from three miles away. On schedule, 514
medium and heavy bombers, supported by 300 fighter-bombers and 280 fighters,
dropped high explosives on the area. During the afternoon, 746 artillery
pieces of the British 10 Corps, the U.S. II Corps, and the New Zealand
Corps fired 200,000 rounds, delivering another 1,200 tons of explosives.
The bombardment failed to meet expectations. As the infantry and armored
units advanced over the cratered and now nearly impassable terrain, they
found the German positions still intact and enthusiastically defended.
Despite new air attacks by fighter-bombers, and another 106 tons of bombs,
the New Zealanders and Indians made little progress. Still further air
attacks on 16-17 March, which dropped 466 tons of bombs, produced no tangible
results. By 21 March, seven days into the attack, General Clark called
on Freyberg to break off the assault, a decision thought prudent by Generals
Juin and Leese as well. Yet thinking that success was just within reach,
Freyberg continued the attack until Alexander compelled him to halt the
offensive on 23 March. After multiple air assaults, the firing of 600,000
artillery shells, and 1,316 New Zealander and 3,000 Indian casualties,
Cassino, Monte Cassino, and the Liri valley remained in German hands.

The Allies had failed to break the Gustav Line three times: in January
with the ill-fated assaults on the Rapido River; in February with the attempt
to outflank Cassino; and in March with the attempt to drive between the
monastery on Monte Cassino and the town below. The Germans remained in
firm control of the fortified line stretching from the Gulf of Gaeta on
the Tyrrhenian Sea to the Adriatic, and they were now preparing the Hitler
Line, five to ten miles farther north. These new defenses stretched from
Terracina to the Liri valley and Monte Cairo and were manned by the equivalent
of nine divisions of the L1 Mountain Corps under Lt. Gen. Valentin Feuerstein.
To meet further Allied attacks, the Tenth and Fourteenth Armies gathered
365,000 soldiers, the bulk of the 412,000 German troops stationed in Italy
south of the Alps.

General Alexander used the period from March to May 1944 to rebuild
his forces and plan the final push on Rome. To assure an overwhelming victory,
and to avoid the battles of attrition encountered thus far, the 15th Army
Group commander estimated that he needed at least a three-to-one advantage
in infantry over his adversaries, requiring a major reorganization of the
Allied line. The Fifth Army front was therefore reduced to twelve miles—just
the narrow coastal plain along the Tyrrhenian Sea. With the addition of
two new American infantry divisions to the II Corps, the 85th and 88th,
the arrival of the IV Corps headquarters, and the addition of the 4th Moroccan
Mountain and French 1st Motorized Divisions to the FEC, Fifth Army strength
was over 350,276 by late April. The Eighth Army front had been extended
westward across the Apennines to Cassino. Its multinational force of 265,000
men represented twenty-one nations and included the British 5, 10, and
13 Corps; the Canadian 1st Corps; the New Zealand Corps; and the 2d Polish
Corps under Lt. Gen. Wladyslaw Anders.

As the Allies regrouped on the ground, the Mediterranean Allied Air
Forces (MAAF) began Operation STRANGLE on 11 March. The goal of this air
campaign was to cut enemy supply lines south of the Alps and weaken the
German armies logistically, thereby diminishing their ability to withstand
a new offensive. When STRANGLE ended on 11 May, the air forces had conducted
over 65,000 sorties and dropped 33,000 tons of bombs on road, rail, and
sea routes. In spite of inclement weather and an inability to bomb at night,
the air attacks disrupted transportation at all points south of a line
running from Pisa to Rimini. The Germans repaired most of the damage, however,
and continued to reinforce and resupply the front, although at a slower
and reduced pace.

The Allied offensive planned for May 1944, code-named DIADEM, had the
dual goals of tying down German forces in Italy during OVERLORD and capturing
Rome. Alexander's controversial plan, which was not to Clark's liking because
of the supporting role it assigned to the Fifth Army, called for the Polish
Corps to take Monte Cassino while the British 13 Corps crossed the Rapido,
took Cassino, and hit the northern flank of the Hitler Line. Fifth Army's
VI Corps would break out of Anzio; move inland to capture Valmontone, a
village straddling Highway 6; and cut the Tenth Army's line of retreat.
The remainder of the Fifth Army was to protect the Eighth Army's left flank
during the drive north for the link-up with VI Corps and subsequent advance
on Rome. Implicit in Alexander's plan was the destruction of German military
forces south of Rome.

Although General Alexander clearly intended the Eighth Army to play
the major role in DIADEM, General Clark wanted to ensure that the Americans,
not the British, took Rome, and he actively sought to have the Fifth Army's
role increased to bring about this aim. Although he was rebuffed in his
efforts during a tense 1 May meeting with Alexander, the latter was aware
that Clark's views differed from his own. To maintain cordial relations
with his ally, Alexander provided only the most general orders to Clark,
thus allowing him great flexibility in determining Fifth Army deployments
during the coming weeks.

The long-awaited spring offensive commenced on 11 May 1944 at 2300 with
a massive barrage by 1,660 artillery pieces along the entire front from
Cassino to the sea. When the barrage lifted, twenty-five Allied divisions
attacked. The British 13 Corps immediately crossed the Rapido at two points
and established a small bridgehead, but the Polish Corps assault on Monte
Cassino failed with more than 50 percent of the attacking force counted
as casualties. In the II Corps area the U.S. 88th Infantry Division made
slight progress against heavy resistance, while the 4th Moroccan Mountain
Division succeeded in taking Monte Majo on 13 May after bitter fighting,
breaking the Gustav Line. This FEC penetration over rugged terrain succeeded
in securing the high ground overlooking the Liri valley and threatened
not only the entire left wing of the XIV Panzer Corps, but also the Germans
at Cassino. Sensing an opportunity to widen the breach in the Gustav Line
in the Monte Majo area, both the 85th and 88th Divisions smashed into the
German positions and after savage fighting forced the defenders back. Having
lost over 40 percent of their combat strength in just three days, with
pressure building along the entire Gustav Line, and faced with the encirclement
of Cassino, the Germans began to withdraw to the north, fighting desperate
rearguard actions the entire way. By the early morning hours of 16 May,
the II Corps and FEC had broken the Gustav Line at several points at the
cost of 3,000 casualties, 1,100 in the 85th Division alone. To the east,
the British 13 Corps also broke through the German defenses, with the Canadians
pouring across the Rapido and the British 78th Division cutting Highway
6. On 17 May the Polish Corps, supported by the 78th Division, again attacked
Monte Cassino and, following a day of ferocious combat and heavy losses,
rendered the German positions untenable. During the night the remaining
enemy forces quietly retreated, allowing the Poles to take the summit unopposed
the following morning.

Having dislodged the enemy from the Gustav Line, the Allies sought to
keep the offensive moving and to prevent the Germans from settling into
new positions on the Hitler Line. Yet by the time the British advance up
the Liri valley resumed on 18-19 May, the Germans had dug in, and the Eighth
Army faced a renewed round of costly frontal assaults. In the Fifth Army
sector, however, the situation remained fluid. Because the Germans were
withdrawing northeast away from the coast to avoid being cut off, Clark
made the decision to thrust north to Fondi and Terracina to link up with
the Anzio beachhead and head toward Rome rather than relieving the pressure
on the Eighth Army's left flank as originally instructed. Ordering the
FEC to continue its offensive on the Fifth Army right, thereby diverting
German attention from II Corps movements, Clark sent the 88th and 85th
Divisions racing toward Terracina.

Between 23-25 May the Allied armies pushed the Germans back along the
entire front. But while the FEC and II Corps pierced the Hitler Line in
several places, the Eighth Army advance up the Liri valley slowed due to
stubborn enemy resistance, difficult terrain, exhaustion, and heavy casualties.

The 90,000 Allied troops of VI Corps, commanded by Maj. Gen. Lucian
K. Truscott, Jr., started their offensive from the Anzio beachhead as planned
on 23 May 1944. Attacking toward Cisterna, Truscott understood his ultimate
objective to be the capture of Highway 6 at Valmontone. During the following
three days of hard fighting by the U.S. 3d and 45th Infantry Divisions,
the 1st Armored Division, and the 1st Special Service Force, VI Corps broke
free of the beachhead, drove inland, and threatened to drive a wedge between
the Tenth and Fourteenth Armies. In the meantime, at dawn on 24 May, a
task force of motorized infantry, engineers, tanks, and self-propelled
artillery from the 85th Division met a patrol of VI Corps engineers moving
south from Anzio, ending the 125-day isolation of the Fifth Army beachhead.

The Germans rapidly began withdrawing to the Caesar Line, an incomplete
string of fortifications extending east from the region between Anzio and
Rome to a point two miles south of Valmontone.

Alexander had intended the VI Corps breakout to be the start of the
second thrust aimed at destroying German resistance south of Rome. However,
Clark had never accepted Alexander's view that the liberation of Rome was
secondary to the destruction of the German armies in Italy. The American
Fifth Army commander was now convinced that Alexander's plan to trap the
enemy at Valmontone was impossible because of the heavy concentration of
German troops in the area. Fearing that the Caesar Line would prove too
difficult an obstacle for VI Corps, influenced by intelligence reports
which indicated that the area north of Anzio was being denuded of enemy
troops, and wanting Americans to liberate Rome, Clark decided to shift
the bulk of VI Corps to the north for an all-out drive on the Italian capital.
Brushing aside Truscott's protests, and without consulting his staff or
Alexander, Clark ordered the 3d Division and 1st Special Service Force
to continue toward Valmontone, but he directed the 1st Armored and the
34th, 45th, and 36th Infantry Divisions to join the northern advance of
the 85th and 88th Divisions.

Some historians have argued that Clark's decision to shift the direction
of the offensive allowed a significant portion of the enemy's army to escape
past Valmontone, since the weakened American forces in the vicinity and
the Eighth Army still struggling up the Liri valley thirty miles to the
south were not capable of preventing that movement. Meanwhile, north of
Anzio, the redirected Fifth Army units began to encounter increasingly
stiff resistance from enemy units now dug in on the Caesar Line. Although
Alexander accepted Clark's fait accompli with good grace, the Allies were
unable to destroy the German armies south of Rome and possibly end the
Italian campaign in June 1944. In addition, the slow progress made by the
45th and 34th Divisions between 27 and 30 May indicated the possibility
of a renewed stalemate just miles south of Rome.

Yet on the evening of 27-28 May, patrols of the 36th Division scored
a major coup when they discovered a gap between the 362d Infantry and Hermann
Goering Divisions atop Monte Artemisio. In a move which more than made
up for the 36th Division's earlier failure on the Rapido, the 141st, 142d,
and 143d Infantry regiments quickly occupied the heights, and artillerymen
soon brought Highway 6, the main German supply line, under fire at Valmontone.

Troops of the 85th Division enter the gates of Rome
(National Archives)

To General Truscott this was the turning point in the Allied drive to
the north. Kesselring was furious with Mackensen for allowing the ridgeline
to fall and ordered it retaken at all costs. But all of the German counterattacks
failed, and when Valmontone became untenable because of American artillery
fire, Mackensen was relieved of command and replaced by Lt. Gen. Joachim
Lemelsen.

The new Fourteenth Army commander could do little to reverse the tide
of events. When units of the II and VI Corps began to exploit the gap made
by the 36th Division, and when the FEC and Eighth Army renewed their attacks
(north of Frosinone), Kesselring was forced on 2 June to order all German
units to break off contact and withdraw north. Declaring Rome an open city
on 3 June, the Tenth and Fourteenth Armies conducted an orderly retreat
through the city. Only the suburbs were contested. On orders from Hitler,
the wholesale vandalism and demolitions that had characterized the evacuation
of Naples the previous fall were not repeated.

During the night of 4 June elements of the 1st Special Service Force,
1st Armored Division, and the 3d, 34th, 36th, 85th, and 88th Infantry Divisions
entered Rome and quickly moved north. On the following morning large numbers
of Romans poured into the streets to give the long columns of American
soldiers still passing through Rome a tumultuous welcome. The American
troops who actually liberated the city, however, had passed through Rome
during the early morning hours in darkness and near silence and were again
engaging the Germans along a twenty-mile front on the Tiber River.

The liberation of Rome made headlines around the world and was greeted
by the Allies with great joy. Yet the capture of this first Axis capital
had a high price. Since the start of DIADEM on 11 May, the Fifth Army had
suffered a total of 17,931 American casualties: 3,145 killed, 13,704 wounded,
and 1,082 missing—30 percent of the total casualties suffered by the Americans
since Salerno in September 1943. French and British Fifth Army casualties
numbered 10,635 and 3,355 respectively. The Eighth Army counted casualties
of 11,639, bringing total Allied losses during the campaign to over 43,000.
German losses were estimated at 38,000, for both Tenth and Fourteenth Armies,
not including 15,606 prisoners of war.

The accomplishments of the Allied armies in Italy, culminating in the
capture of Rome on 5 June, were quickly overshadowed by the opening of
the long-awaited second front with the Normandy invasion (OVERLORD) on
6 June 1944. Although OVERLORD was to have been supported by a simultaneous
invasion of southern France (ANVIL-DRAGOON), the heavy fighting around
Cassino and chronic supply and manpower shortages caused this landing to
be postponed until 15 August 1944. Yet both OVERLORD and ANVIL-DRAGOON
had an immediate impact on the Italian campaign by further reducing its
military priority. After the liberation of Rome, the Allied forces in Italy
received ever less in terms of men and materiel, confirming in the minds
of many soldiers that the campaign was a holding action of secondary importance.
In addition, with the Allied high command convinced that ANVIL would have
a greater potential for tying down German forces in support of northwest
European operations, the armies in Italy were stripped of many of their
best units and equipment. By mid-July 1944 the FEC would move, along with
the VI Corps headquarters and the U.S. 3d, 36th, and 45th Infantry Divisions,
to the newly created Seventh Army preparing for ANVIL. By midsummer the
Eighth and Fifth Armies would have only 14 divisions facing the 9 divisions
of the Fourteenth Army in the west and the 8 divisions of the Tenth Army
in the east.

Two days after Rome fell, General Alexander received orders from General
Wilson to push the Germans 170 miles north to a line running from Pisa
to Rimini as quickly as possible to prevent the establishment of any sort
of coherent enemy defense in central Italy. The Fifth Army, still fighting
in the western half of the peninsula, set as its immediate goals the capture
of the port of Civitavecchia and the airfields at Viterbo, with the long-range
goal of seizing the triangle of Pisa-Lucca-Pistoia on the Arno River. The
Eighth Army, whose front eventually extended nearly 200 miles from the
interior to the Adriatic, targeted the triangle FlorenceArezzo-Bibbiena.
To maintain momentum, all units were instructed to bypass enemy strongpoints,
but were told to exploit any opportunity to split and destroy the Tenth
and Fourteenth Armies separately before they reached the Arno.

Although Allied progress was steady, neither Fifth nor Eighth Army advanced
as rapidly as planned. Civitavecchia and Viterbo fell on 7 June, with extremely
light Fifth Army casualties, while the Eighth Army captured Terni and Perugia
on 13 and 19 June, respectively. But the constant shifting of troops between
fronts to replace units withdrawn for ANVIL, growing logistical problems,
plus the ever-present rough terrain, poor weather, and sporadic but stiff
enemy resistance, caused innumerable delays.

While the campaign had changed little in its most fundamental aspects,
the terrain for the first 100 miles north of Rome was not nearly as favorable
for the enemy's defensive purposes as that farther south. The Fourteenth
and Tenth Armies did construct two defensive belts across central Italy,
the Dora and Trasimeno (Frieda) Lines, in the attempt to halt or at least
slow the Allied advance, but both were overrun by the end of June. Despite
increasing resistance Allied casualties were low, and by 21 June the Germans
had been pushed 110 miles north of Rome, a stunning advance compared to
the five months of agonizingly slow and bloody gains the previous spring.
Alexander optimistically predicted in late June that at that rate of advance
the Allies could take Leghorn, Ancona, and Bologna within weeks and be
in the Po valley by late summer, ready for an assault into Austria and
the Danube valley.

In spite of the handicaps posed by growing shortages and obstacles presented
by the enemy, the Fifth and Eighth Armies continued to advance. Cecina
fell to the 34th Division on 1 July, after some of the heaviest fighting
seen since before Rome.

American patrols entering Pisa
(National Archives)

The FEC captured Siena on 3 July, and Volterra fell on 8 July to the
1st Armored Division. The newly arrived U.S. 91st Infantry Division, under
Maj. Gen. William G. Livesay, entered action for the first time on 12 July
and helped the 34th and 88th Infantry Divisions and the U.S. Japanese-American
442d Regimental Combat Team capture the port of Leghorn on 19 July before
reaching the banks of the Arno with the rest of the Fifth Army on 23 July.
On the Eighth Army front, the Polish Corps captured the vital port of Ancona
on 18 July, while the British 13 Corps began its advance on Florence, taking
that city on 5 August.

"Roman Holiday" by Mitchell Siporin
(Army Art Collection)

Having failed to stem the Allied advance between Rome and the Arno,
Field Marshal Kesselring was not optimistic that his battered, mixed force
of infantry, armored, Luftwaffe, and foreign units could halt any Allied
thrust short of the Gothic Line north of Florence and the Arno. His concern
was exacerbated by the fact that the Gothic Line was not scheduled for
completion until December 1944. Yet late in July and early in August Alexander,
Clark, and Leese called a halt in offensive operations to allow Allied
units, many of which had been in continuous action since May, to rest,
refit, and prepare for a late-summer assault on the Gothic Line. The midsummer
halt provided a much-needed breather for the Germans as well, who now redoubled
their efforts to complete their Gothic Line defenses. It was during this
lull in activity, as both sides prepared for what would be the final battles
of the war, that the Rome-Arno Campaign officially ended.

Analysis

The Allied operations in Italy between January and September 1944 were
essentially an infantryman's war where the outcome was decided by countless
bitterly
fought small unit actions waged over some of Europe's most difficult terrain
under some of the worst weather conditions found anywhere during World
War II. Given such circumstances, the growing Allied superiority in materiel,
especially in armored and air forces, was of little consequence, and ground
troops were forced to carry out repeated, costly frontal assaults that
quickly turned the campaign into a war of attrition on a battlefield where
the terrain heavily favored the defense. Chronic shortages of troops and
materiel throughout 1944 exacerbated the already difficult tactical situation
in Italy and became worse as the year wore on, ensuring that the limited
Allied forces available would not obtain a quick, decisive victory, but
would rather slowly grind down their well-entrenched and determined enemies.

The Allied air forces aided ground operations by providing close air
support and by disrupting enemy supply lines and communications, but their
efforts were not decisive as demonstrated during the bombings of Monte
Cassino and Operation STRANGLE.

To critics of the Allied effort in Italy, the repeated ill-fated attempts
to open the Liri valley, resulting in the disaster on the Rapido and the
three costly assaults on Monte Cassino, as well as the desperate Anzio
gamble, all indicated a lack of imagination on the part of both British
and American commanders. Allied commanders, however, were limited in their
options considering the political, logistical, and geographical aspects
of the campaign.

It is difficult to justify the heavy investment of Allied lives and
materiel into the Mediterranean theater during 1944. The Italian campaign,
which the Americans had always considered a subsidiary effort, had become
for both sides a major drain of men and materiel, especially after the
liberation of Rome, when Operations OVERLORD and ANVIL reduced the theater
to secondary importance within the overall Allied strategy. While the Allies
did tie down a significant number of enemy divisions in Italy, it was often
not apparent during 1944 whether it was the Allies or the Germans who were
actually doing the tying down.

Even though hundreds of miles of territory had been liberated by the
summer of 1944, the Rome-Arno Campaign did not end the war of attrition.
The multinational Allied armies in Italy faced a further nine months of
campaigning, under conditions similar to those they had endured during
the previous year.

Further Readings

For a campaign overview see Carlo D'Este, World War II in the Mediterranean,
1942-1945 (1990). Specific accounts of the Anzio landing and Rapido crossing
are in William L. Allen, Anzio: Edge of Disaster (1978); and Martin Blumenson,
Anzio: The Gamble That Failed (1963), and Bloody River: The Real Tragedy
of the Rapido (1970). Monte Cassino is the subject of John Ellis, Cassino:
The Hollow Victory (1984), and David Hapgood, Monte Cassino (1984). For
Operation DL\DEM see W. G. F. Jackson, The Battle for Rome (1969), and
Raleigh Trevelyan, Rome '44: The Battle for the Eternal City (1982). For
the official view see General Sir Henry M. Wilson, Report to the Combined
Chiefs of Staff on the Italian Campaign, 8 January 1944-10 May 1944 (1946);
Fifth Army, The Advance on Rome of the Fifth Army (1944); Fifth Army History,
volumes 3 to 5 (1945); and Mediterranean Allied Air Forces, Air Power in
the Mediterranean, November 1942 to February 1945 (1945). The most comprehensive
volumes on the Italian campaign remain Martin Blumenson, Salerno to Cassino
(1969), and Ernest F. Fisher, Jr., Cassino to the Alps (1977), both in
the U.S. Army in World War II series published by the U.S. Army Center
of Military History.